Sweeter Than Wine (3 page)

"I thought your grandparents were happy to be connected with an established
European winemaking family," Alice reproved gently.

"That was before the Huns killed Bill."

Alice winced, smoothed her gloves on, and buttoned them. "Your grandmother
says Siegfried is an experienced vintner."

"You don't need Tati's kind of help," Hugh said bitterly. "It'll be useless after
Prohibition, anyway. Promise me you'll reconsider my offer!"

"I will." Alice pinned her straw hat securely to her neatly coiled hair.
If
Prohibition goes into effect at all.

Hugh rose belatedly from his chair. "Let me see you out to your car."

They left his white clapboard house and walked towards a battered Model-T
truck parked in the dusty driveway.

The early-morning fog had burned off, leaving bright summer sunshine and
warmth. The smell of chickens, although much stronger out here, was mitigated by
the pleasantly biting fragrance of the eucalyptus trees planted for shade. Incessant
clucking and an occasional squawk came from the poultry houses that climbed the
gentle slope of the hill behind the house.

Hugh paused in front of the Model-T and rolled up his shirtsleeves. He raised
an eyebrow as she opened the door for herself. "How do you start this thing when
you don't have a man around?"

"I manage well enough." Alice slipped into the long linen coat that protected
her blue-and-white summer frock from the dust of the road and settled herself
behind the steering wheel. "I've learned to take my gloves off first." She smiled at
her own dry joke.

"You shouldn't have sold Bill's--
car
." Hugh's voice was punctuated by
the effort of turning the crank. The Model-T's engine started with its usual belch
and rumble.

"I do miss the electric starter, but the Buick wasn't very practical at Montclair,"
Alice said. The sale of the car had paid this year's wages for Peter and Maria
Verdacchia, and she had gotten the truck in trade--a bargain for which she was
still congratulating herself. She wouldn't have to rent a team of horses this season
for the harvest wagon. She put the truck into gear and prepared to release the
brake. "Thank you for lunch, Hugh."

Hugh's wave good-bye was desultory. She caught a last glimpse of him before
the drive curved abruptly south onto Chalk Hill Road. He stood, arms akimbo,
clearly disappointed that she hadn't accepted his offer.

Alice sighed as she negotiated the twists and turns of the bumpy road heading
towards Santa Rosa. Since Bill had been gone, she had come to depend on his
older brother's help and advice, but every visit now Hugh grew more and more
insistent about buying her vineyard, and skirting closer to voicing his unspoken
opinion that she didn't deserve to own Montclair.

She didn't like to agree with Hugh, but he was right: she had no excuse for
loving her land except that she had found unexpected delight in being Mrs. William
Roye, of Montclair, and not Alice O'Reilly of brazen San Francisco, city of
miserable rainy winters, cold foggy summers, and questionable morals.

The Ford bounced over a rough patch in the road and Alice gripped the
steering wheel tightly. She understood, even sympathized, with Hugh's position.
He wanted Montclair as much as she did.

The first time she had seen the property, in the autumn of 1914, she had been
newly-graduated from St. Rose High School. Her father had brought her along on
his yearly trip to inspect the new vintages. As he drove through orderly acres, the
lanes between the trellised vines had opened straight every way she looked,
forming mystical geometric patterns which surrounded her with peace and a sense
of homecoming. She had fallen in love.

Bill Roye's bright blue eyes and merry smile had welcomed her into his home.
He had married her and she had enthusiastically thrown herself into the life of a
country wife. If only it could have lasted longer.

The dust--it must have been the dust thrown up by the tires--made her throat
tight.

The breeze from the truck's speed fanned against the sheen of perspiration on
her face, and she stopped for a moment to release the buttons on her driving coat.
The warm day had suddenly turned hot, the air spiced with bay laurel and wild
fennel. Red-trunked manzanita bushes raked dry elongated leaves along the side
of her truck. Over the rattle of the engine, a meadowlark's piercing melody lifted
her heart, reminding her she was far from the City.

She tried very hard to drive straight through Santa Rosa, but there was a
shaded place to park right by the entrance to the White House department store
and temptation got the better of her. Feeling guilty and delighted at the same time,
Alice went in to admire the new shipment of clothing on display.

She wished she could afford to buy some long hobbled skirts and loosely
belted jackets, and at least one summer hat trimmed with flowers and feathers.
Alice admired all the beautiful things she couldn't have today.
Maybe next
year...
She lingered by the perfume counter, seduced by the fragrances.

"Can I help you with something, ma'am?" asked the young shopgirl, flyaway
hair tousled around an apathetic moon face.

"I believe the young lady over there was ahead of me," Alice nodded in the
direction of the shirtwaist display, where a dark-haired woman was holding one of
the blouses against herself to measure its arm length.

The shopgirl wrinkled her nose. "Oh,
her
," she said. "She's no lady. She
can wait while decent folks get served."

"I beg your pardon?" Alice's suspicions were confirmed with the shopgirl's next
words.

"She's from one of
those
houses on Sonoma Avenue. Don't know why
she insists on coming here and offending our respectable customers. In fact, if
she's causing you any trouble, I'll call the manager and he'll put her out on the
street where she belongs."

Alice burned in silent shame and horrified sympathy for the girl. She had
grown up in one of
those
houses, and had many times experienced the
same scorn when Mama dared to venture to stores outside the free-wheeling
Barbary Coast. "No...no, that won't be necessary."

"Well, all right," said the shopgirl, disappointed. "Now, how may I help you,
ma'am?"

"I need some middies." She studied the young prostitute covertly while the
shopgirl went to fill Alice's order. A heavy coating of rice powder covered the thin,
pretty face.
Probably hiding a bruise
, Alice thought sympathetically.

Two matrons entered the shop, noticed the girl's bare hands and scarlet-
painted nails, and gave loud, condemning sniffs. The girl's lips thinned, but she
kept her gaze focused on the pretty lace shirtwaist she was examining as the
matrons carefully walked around her, holding their purses away as if she might
contaminate them.

Alice remembered her own youthful determination to hide how much that kind
of disapproval hurt. And if her current friends and neighbors ever found out about
her past, Alice knew she would be treated no differently. At that moment, the
prostitute looked up and met Alice's gaze, her expression one of weary
defiance.

Alice bit her lip and turned quickly away. She reminded herself that she had
put her past behind her. She was respectable now, a war-hero's widow. There was
nothing left of the little girl who had been fussed over by the working girls in her
mother's parlor house, who had sat listening to the stories of their adventures and
their precarious lives, who knew too much about what happened to women who
weren't ladies. She wasn't standing in that young woman's shoes, forced to earn
her living on her back because she had no other choice.

But she might be, if this harvest failed, or if the law made winemaking illegal
without a license.

Forcing down her fears, Alice handed over four dollars and accepted the
neatly wrapped package of middies in return, trying hard to feel satisfied. The
modest cotton sailor-blouses were comfortable to work in, and would last. Out of
the corner of her eye, Alice saw the dark-haired girl, her chin raised proudly, bring
her lovely acquisition to the shopgirl.

Alice escaped outside, tossing her sensible purchase onto the seat of the
truck. She took off her gloves with a pang, then bent awkwardly in her high heels
and strained at the Ford's crank. The first quarter-turn was always easy, but the
half-turn that followed took all of her strength as she battled increasing resistance.
Perspiration trickled down her forehead and neck. If she let go now, the kickback
could break her wrist. She hoped no one was watching--the engine shuddered to
life as the crank slid into the last quarter turn.

She hurriedly pulled her gloves on over her reddened palms, donned her coat,
and sat behind the wheel, collecting herself.

The dark-haired girl came out just then, jauntily carrying her parcel. She
looked neither right nor left as she departed down the sidewalk, hips rolling in
blatant advertisement. Male heads swiveled to watch her while every female
turned away.

Alice clutched her steering wheel.
It's not my business. It has nothing to do
with me.

Driving rapidly away from the store, Alice shoved away thoughts of the past by
speculating on what the afternoon mail might bring. Maybe a response from
Archbishop Hanna? He might not be a family friend, but as a good Catholic
winemaker, she had as much right as anyone to petition him for a sacramental
wine license.

And Montclair's wines were more than worthy of his consideration. They would
be her financial salvation as well as her offering to God, even if the sins she hoped
to atone for were not her own.

The memory of her mother's practiced laugh mocked her thoughts.
Deliberately, she filled her mind with the beauty of the scenery: dairy pastures,
walnut orchards, plum orchards, hayfields, vineyards, high rock palisades, and
long stretches of empty, rolling golden California countryside. She had spent her
entire adult life proving to herself that she was nothing like Mama. She would not
stop now.

Two hot hours later she turned onto West Spain Street, and quickly
maneuvered through the light traffic around Sonoma's picturesque Central Plaza.
She rejoiced when she finally reached Lovell Valley Road, because it led directly
to Montclair, nestled in the curve of the Sonoma-Napa hills. Her vineyard was
situated north of Gundlach Bundschu's four-hundred-acre Rhine Farm, south of
Carl Dresel's much smaller vine-bearing property, and east of colorful Agoston
Haraszthy's now-deserted Buena Vista.

She left her engine running by the wrought-iron front gate at the bottom of the
hill, and went eagerly to open the mailbox. Pulling out a sheaf of mail, she
scanned it, looking for official stationery.
Nothing today
. Alice sighed, and
tossed the packet of bills and circulars next to her practical purchase on the seat
before negotiating the gate and the drive up to the house.

Alice heard the telephone shrilling as she slammed the truck's door. "Wait!
Wait! I'm coming." She hurried up the walkway and threw open the front screen
door, running down the hall to the base of the staircase, grabbing the conical
receiver. Panting, she bent toward the mouthpiece hanging on the wall. "H-
Hello?"

"Hello, Mrs. Roye. This is Gertrude. You have a call from San Francisco,"
announced the local operator. "I'm connecting you now."

A horrible apprehension struck Alice. "Who is it?" she demanded, but Gertie
Breitenbach was already gone.

"Goodness, child. Did I catch you at a bad time?" a vibrant voice asked with a
laugh. "Shall I ring you back?"

Alice patted her chest and took a deep breath, reprieved. "No, Grandmother
Tati! It's always good to hear from you."

"How are you?"

"I'm well. I just returned from Santa Rosa--shopping and lunch with Hugh."

"I see," Tati's voice was abruptly cool. "And how are things at Montclair?"

Alice had never understood the hostility between Tati and her oldest grandson,
so she decided not to mention Hugh's latest offer to buy Montclair. "Peter says the
vines are doing very well. He and Maria will be going to her brother's wedding in
San Jose this weekend. I'm glad that they're finally getting out again, after all the
dreadfulness last winter. And we're excited that you've found us a vintner."

"Speaking of Siegfried, I would like you to meet him. Do come tomorrow. We'll
have high tea at the St. Francis."

"But--" Alice hesitated, caught a little off-balance. "I don't know if I can leave
again so soon. We're in the middle of dusting the vines. And he
is
coming
up here next week."

"It will be good for you to meet first," Tati said firmly. "To make sure that you
will get along. I was so sorry that I couldn't help you with Montclair after Bill--" The
old woman's voice thickened, and she coughed to clear it before she continued.
"You've worked so hard at Montclair to preserve my dear husband's legacy, and it
means a great deal to me that you've considered taking Siegfried on, Alice dear.
Do say you'll come tomorrow."

Alice hated going in to the City, but she could not refuse Tati. Bill's
grandmother had welcomed Alice into the Roye family and treated her with never-
failing politeness, almost like a real daughter. She had earned Alice's eternal
gratitude, because although she must be aware of Alice's circumstances, she had
never once mentioned them out loud, or allowed her awareness of Alice's origins
to show in word or inflection. Tatiana Feyodorovna Roye was exactly the kind of
lady Alice aspired to be. "All right. I'll come."

"I'll expect you on the one o'clock ferry. I know it's a long trip from Sonoma,
dear, but I do so look forward to seeing you again."

They rang off, leaving Alice standing in the shadowed hallway, studying the
carved ball on the newel post. Tati's husband William Roye, silver baron and
amateur vintner, had built the house, the vineyard, and Montclair's reputation.
Alice hoped that things would indeed work out with Bill's cousin Siegfried. She
badly needed a skilled winemaker. Another shipment of spoiled wines would seal
Montclair's doom--and hers.